He paused after the end of his last "word and added, "Except the amba.s.sador, of course. She has diplomatic immunity." He stumbled over the last two words.
To Acorna"s surprise, Miw-Sher looked stricken. "But I have to go, too."
Acorna relented, not so much because of Miw-Sher"s distress as out of curiosity to see "what had caused this desperate desire to leave the Temple in her company. She nudged at the Temple guard"s brain again.
The guard said, "And her staff, of course."
Sacred Pash growled. "And the sacred cats, it goes without saying," the guard added quickly.
Acorna added a suggestion that there was no reason why he should remember that their little party had left the confines of the Temple, should anyone inquire.
Then she looked for RK.
(Me. Ow.) RK"s voice resonated in her thoughts. (I"m up here, Acorna. Here. That"s right. The roof. Follow the leader. I see you"ve brought the Temple gang "with you. Welcome, brothers and sisters. Perhaps you"d like to leap up here and I"ll show you how an investigation is properly conducted?)
The Temple cats all leaped up to the roof. Acorna, not possessing the cats" abilities, guided Miw-Sher so that she and the girl were hidden by the corner of the house, out of sight of the guard, so that he would not be reminded of that which he had been persuaded to forget. They followed the cats as best they could on the ground.
RK hopped to the next rooftop, still pontificating, all puffed up in a particularly feline way. (You will notice, brothers and sisters and two-legged friends, that this rooftop where we discovered the object of our search is a mere two rooftops from the house where the alarm was originally raised.)
(You mean the place where the monk was murdered?) Acorna asked.
(Aha, but do we know that?) RK challenged in an insufferably superior tone. (Do we know in fact that our suspect "was the actual murderer or, for that matter, that the late monk was a victim? Possibly they were co-belligerents and the monk got the worst end of someone"s claws?)
"What is happening?" Miw-Sher asked. "Is the alien guardian cat speaking to you?"
"Yes," Acorna said, and summarized for her RK"s latest remarks.
The two females walked along beside the buildings as the cats leaped rooftops. They tried hard not to stare upwards in case pa.s.sersby might follow their gaze.
Suddenly Miw-Sher ran ahead, then disappeared into the home where the woman had cried out and been answered by the guard during the night.
"This "way, Acorna," she said.
Temporarily abandoning the cats, Acorna ducked into the house and saw that Miw-Sher had set up the house ladder to the central roof hole. The girl was halfway up the ladder already and Acorna followed her, without questioning why the girl felt free to enter the home when the owners "were absent. Once she was out in the open air again, however, Acorna saw that she and Miw-Sher were now exactly two rooftops away from where the cats were. The cats paid them no attention. The felines had gathered in a corner of the roof they occupied,
under the sketchy protection of a makeshift shelter. But as Acorna prepared to leap across the first rooftop, RK stuck his head out and said to her, (Hurry. I don"t think he has much time.)
(Distract Miw-Sher,) Acorna instructed RK.
(What? Oh, sure. You don"t want her to know how you heal him with the old horn, eh? I can do that. Hey, girlie, pet the nice kitty. Here I am! Pick me up! Oh, I"m so afraid! Pet me, comfort me! Man, am I b.u.mmed by this hurt guy in the corner!) He was twisting himself around the girl"s ankles, clawing at her skirts, trying to jump onto her shoulder, but she ignored him with the skill of one long used to the ways of cats and managed to beat Acorna to the injured party.
The being lay, much as RK"s mind picture had shown her, face up, with feet/paws and hand/paws shifting back and forth in form in time with the rhythms of his ragged, rapid breathing.
"Uncle!" Miw-Sher cried before Acorna could touch the injured cat/man. "Oh, Uncle, what have you done?"
Eleven.
Miw-Sher"s cheek rested on the injured priest Bulaybub"s chest. The cats crowded around her, so Acorna laid her horn first on his head, and then, pretending to listen to his heart, upon that. She gently shifted Miw-Sher aside to examine Bulaybub for wounds. She found one on his abdomen, a deep puncture. This she also healed, but the priest had lost a great deal of blood and had lain exposed to the elements for some time. Despite her efforts, he didn"t look good.
"Will he live?" Miw-Sher asked.
Bulaybub looked at her and rolled his eyes. Through his cracked lips and parched throat he said, "Get off me, child, and all you hot holy ones, too. The day is far too warm for your nearness to be comforting." As he spoke, he turned completely human. His tail disappeared, his ears settled down behind his jawbone and shed their fur to become rounded and flesh-colored. His hands and feet lost their fur and claws and became dirty but bare, with broken toenails.
Even the wild animal tang in the air vanished. The priest stank as a damaged, overheated, underwashed human stank. As he transformed, Miw-Sher draped his lower body with a scarf similar to the one she had given Acorna, to preserve his human modesty.
The cats sat back.
RK projected, (Well done, shipmate. He seems perfectly healthy now, though he"s lost what looks he had.)
"Uncle, can you stand? We must get you indoors."
The priest rose awkwardly, clutching the scarf to his middle, so that it draped down his thighs and tangled between his knees. The Temple cats took up sentinel positions on each corner of the roof. Acorna could see that they were determined to warn their human companions should anyone approach them.
Miw-Sher a.s.sisted her uncle to the ladder leading down into the house. The occupant, conveniently, was not at home, but had left the ladder to the roof in place.
Bulaybub gave his niece a conspiratorial smile, though one that was somewhat white around the lips. "Being a mendicant monk has advantages," he said. "If you beg door to door often enough, you soon find out what is behind each of the doors you beg at."
"Is that how you knew you could use the home of the woman who had gone to help her sick sister, the place where the guards found all that blood?" Acorna asked.
"Yes, and it is how I know that the family who lives here went to help their country kinfolk slaughter their infected animals and will not return for some time." He half fell down the ladder and heaved himself onto the seat against the wall beside the cold hearth. "Ahhhh." He finished with a sigh as he leaned against the wall to rest.
Once the humans were safely hidden inside the house, the Temple cats folio-wed them-flowing down the crude ladder as easily as though it was a grand staircase. They arranged themselves around the room to watch the show.
"I do believe I"m feeling better," Bulaybub said, sounding just a bit tired. "You are indeed the miraculous person we were told would come, Amba.s.sador," he said to Acorna after a moment.
"Not so miraculous as all that," Acorna said, wondering just who had told the priest she was coming, when she hadn"t known that herself until she was practically landing on the planet. She"d deal with that issue later, after she"d broached the far more urgent topic on her mind. "I have some small talents as a healer, but it appears that in this instance, I have been able to raise the dead. I understood from the Mulzar that your corpse was throttled, nearly decapitated, and eviscerated."
"Oh, yes. Well, obviously, the body they found was not mine. It seemed useful to let Edu and others believe it to be mine, at least for a time, however. Unfortunately, it required a great deal of rather nasty claw work postmortem to obliterate identifying characteristics."
"Are you going to tell me whose body it was, not to mention how he came to be postmortem?" Acorna asked.
"Do you think that if I do so, I will confess how I came to be a murderer?" the priest asked with a hint of wry amus.e.m.e.nt.
"That would be truly enlightening, Brother," a voice said from the roof, immediately followed by the lithe form of Nadhari Kando, who slithered down the ladder, her gaze never leaving Bulaybub and Miw-Sher, her grip never loosening on the deadly dagger she carried. "And I, too, would love to hear your answer."
Bulaybub inhaled sharply. "Nadhari," he said, and his voice was filled with pain, pain that clearly had nothing to do with his recent wounds. "You must listen to me," he said, "I know the Mulzar is your relative, but all is not as he would have you think."
Nadhari looked at the priest more closely, though it was hard to distinguish features in the windowless room with only the light from the roof hole to illuminate it. "Of course it isn"t. Do you think I"m a fool? But I"m a bit surprised to hear you admit Edu might be misleading us, Brother Bulaybub. I thought you were Edu"s righthand man."
From the way Nadhari and Bulaybub spoke to each other, Acorna gathered that she was not the only one in the room with secrets to keep. Everyone here, probably including the cats, obviously had agendas heretofore unshared with her.
The Temple cats lounged around and upon the various bits of furnishings and architectural irregularities in a manner designed to make a decorative display. They groomed themselves while Miw-Sher, with a frightened glance at Nadhari, gave her uncle sips of water. None of the cats, however, seemed to feel that anything that was happening was especially strange or upsetting. Even RK curled up beside Bulaybub and purred.
"Wait," Acorna said. "Before we get into politics, Nadhari, may I ask a few basic questions? Brother Bulaybub, last night you changed from a man to a large cat, and back again. You changed up there on the roof, too. I saw it myself, and so did RK. How did that happen?"
"He did?" Nadhari asked. "I wish I"d come earlier. I"m sorry I missed it. Go ahead, Brother. I want to hear the answer to that one."